Tag: Poetry Reviews

The Strings of Walnetto Arrangements by Ben Estes My rating: 4 of 5 stars Punky is right I say it is right so it must be Right Night at the poetry house–crickets chipping in a not-quite-stein voice for all the rabbits and cymbals popping out the dampness. I low the low in the voice of …

Barn Burned, Then by Michelle Taransky My rating: 5 of 5 stars I continue in awe of the way Taransky can break a line. The poems are as worked as work can be, but broken thank goodness, broken like champs. Can’t imagine the lines any differently. But I don’t really think the crux of this …

Born Two by Allison Cobb My rating: 5 of 5 stars A romp(er) in the sense that everything is worn, frayed, last legs etc. That the language is newish and known, a sound fulcrum, & um (sic) becoming. No being the master in these poems, no meaning no to those who wish to ‘ah’ at …

NO, I WILL BE IN THE WOODS by Michelle Taransky My rating: 5 of 5 stars It was raining raining raining when I got the mail and opened it and read this book (thank goodness) instead of doing nothing. And what a beautiful book of poems printed on opaque vellum and what a treat to …

Pause Button by Kevin Davies My rating: 5 of 5 stars The first thing that hit me about this book was how masterful Davies is at adding/subtracting text. While there’s plenty of books out there with “erasures” (which usually inject air into a heavier text), this book has “deletions.” Like the text was shot thru. …

living must bury by Josie Sigler My rating: 4 of 5 stars Gotta say that I loved the “Contents” in this book. What is usually a list of titles and page numbers, Sigler weaves into a whopper of a poem. I’m a sucker for prayerish poems and “Contents” was one of the best I’ve read …

Absolute Bob by Anne Portugal My rating: 5 of 5 stars This one will give you whip lash it’s so fast and engaging. I can’t say I know if it’s about anything except the act of doing things and having them done. Images captured, buildings erected, reprieves granted, disasters ensued and and and “Bob;” a …

The Geoglyph by Patrick Kosiewicz My rating: 3 of 5 stars This ode to natural sciences really spread out on the page. It took me about 15 minutes to read all 77 pages and I’m a pretty slow reader. Spanning the creation of the earth to its burgeoning wildlife, it was a macro-topic which is …

Fruitlands by Kate Colby My rating: 3 of 5 stars I have no idea about this book. Having forced myself thru lines like “concentric desire outspreads / her strained connectives” to get to more interesting poems like False Spring and Untitled Triptych – I just don’t know. Colby is obviously talented but maybe a little …

To Light Out by Karen Weiser My rating: 2 of 5 stars While the lyric in these poems was exciting and the imagination is certainly there, I just couldn’t get past the thinking — a quadrupling-up a metaphors to describe what exactly? Angels? Birth? I did stop caring. And got frustrated. View all my reviews

Under the Sun by Rachel Levitsky My rating: 5 of 5 stars Take a story and foreshorten it replace the names and re-lace the conversation more awkwardly so that thinking is a fact/axis and apologize say sorry. Pivot on “this” and “which.” Pivot any spinning thing desperately this swiftness and silence things happen in. Indeed …

Eclat Sites 1-10 by Caroline Bergvall My rating: 5 of 5 stars Who wants to make something with this language that has to be made in a box. Made box that opens that closes. you can tape it and break the tape to open the box made. you made an o pening with a pen …

Precise Intrigues by Mary Angeline My rating: 4 of 5 stars A pleasant read where was I in the arrangement of articles “a” and “the” post-postness. Attuned silver forks many tines to her ear airs. The like facts that Angeline has preppy positions, darling danglers, academy obfuscation and legal heretofor. No go on the space …

Protective Immediacy by Rod Smith My rating: 5 of 5 stars It is elastic and eeking and as anti as it is american ramshackle orchestral backflips. But extraordinarily hard to quote back so woe is you who have not read rod. View all my reviews

Chain of Minuscule Decisions in the Form of a Feeling by Sarah Riggs My rating: 5 of 5 stars I really get this book. So much so I’m teetering on uncanniness, so there am I. Chain… is a re-re-re work. It puts forth multiple iterations of a primary text. The primary text is like a …

In Medias Res: Poems by Karen An-hwei Lee My rating: 3 of 5 stars I am usually not in the Saraband camp, but I bought this in NY last year because something calmed me about the layout – little pieces of things alphabetized like a dictionary. And it was rather calming. A one-sitting kind of …

In the Function of External Circumstances by Edwin Torres My rating: 3 of 5 stars I am talking hitting and missing all over the place. The first two sections were throw-aways but I’m glad I didn’t give up b/c “Underneath a Southern Cross” is where it’s at – go there/read that – it is much …

Streets Enough to Welcome Snow by Rosmarie Waldrop My rating: 5 of 5 stars My five stars are based on an average rating of the sections. Mostly the book was a good solid 4-star read–you know: smart, classic-rosmarie goodness. But. One section, “Providence in Winter,” received one of my famous, late-night, thousand-star downpours. Reading it …

Humours Run Deep by Tom Bridwell My rating: 5 of 5 stars One of those crazy could-have-only-found-it-in-houston books that I’m so glad I bought. This book runs fast across the surface–as folksy as abstract as technical as he wants to be. I tinkled (perfectly literary response) with its many rolling-over inflect/ions. If you can find …

The Romance of Happy Workers by Anne Boyer My rating: 5 of 5 stars Hell to the yes Anne Boyer for her smirky yawp at the piddly moon. Just when I started to worry about whether poetry’s meta-isms are just masturbatory, it hit me: masturbating is great. Of course! We should all be rubbing them …